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This is terrific stuff, thanks! Joe Muller, and Augusta Groner, are terrific finds. Originally published in English in 1910, and given a fine review by the New York Times Saturday Review of Books, it could be that WWI got in the way of the Austrian detective's future literary career. Pity. The Case of the Golden Bullet, a typical locked room who-done-it is delightful.
Here's what was said about the Omnibus in 1910:
New York Times, 28 May 1910 - Section Saturday Review of Books, Pg BR11
AN AUSTRIAN DETECTIVE
ANOTHER detective of genius has made his bow in literature. He belongs to the Imperial Austrian police and his creator is Frau Augusta Groner, an Austrian novelist. Several instances of his cleverness in ferreting out the doers of evil are translated into English, with some adaptation, by Grace Isabel Colbron, author, literary critic, and single-tax lecturer. The volume bears the title, "Joe Muller: Detective" (Duffield & Co., $1.50). He differs so much, in personality and endowments, from other famous detectives of fiction that Frau Groner must be credited with the creation of a new character. Unlike Sherlock Holmes, he does not reason out his conclusions, but seems rather to be forced into them by instinct, to be impelled along his course from one discovery to another by inspiration. Unlike Monsieur Lecocq, in his methods he is neither brilliant, startling or melodramatic. He is just a quiet, plain little man, unduly humble, who edges his way along the precarious path of a secret-service detective, and only on rare occasions feeling pride in his powers and achievements. Frau Groner gives him a number of apparently simple cases to unravel, which his genius soon finds to be anything but simple. But having set his nose to the trail, his hound's instinct leads him through twisting and complicated ways to surprising ends. The stories have surprising cleverness, both in the portrayal of Muller's character and methods and in the complications and slow revelations of incidents and motives. But the detective's superiors in the police department seem to be unnecessarily stupid.
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